Cool Stuff Blog II: Cab Calloway, Carlos Chávez, and Lead Belly

Cab Calloway was one of the most well-known entertainers in the blues and jazz industry in the 1930s. He started off singing in nightclubs after being in college for law, but he went the route of being a musician. In 1928, he started to direct his own bands, later becoming a band-leader in the Cotton Club in 1931. He released "Minnie the Moocher" and it became one of his most well-known pieces that showed off not only the talent of the band but also of his scat singing. Scat singing is improvised vocables that use the voice as an instrument. His band from 1937 through 1942 was considered to be the best out of any bands that he directed, but they ended up disbanding when there was a decline in popularity regarding big bands. One of my favorite pieces that he has done is "St. James Infirmary Blues", in which the music matches perfectly with the Betty Boop animation. A lot of music that was paired with animation in the 1930s did an amazing job of harmonizing with the music.

Carlos Chávez is a composer from Mexico who is also well known for his conducting and his work as a music critic. He became very proficient in composing without the instruction of teachers. He grew up around the time of the Mexican Revolution, in which nationalism was a huge focus. This definitely influenced the pieces that he composed and shaped him as an artist. He researched the culture and folk elements of indigenous music around him and embedded it into his music. Some of the elements were what we heard in class with the music of Ecuador which included syncopation, polyrhythms, and irregular meter. "Cantos de Mexico" is an excellent example of how he incorporated the music of the native culture into his music, which you can hear specifically with the drum in the background that acts as the heartbeat of the music. In this, the drum is not constantly playing; there is a solo for the flute that plays in the middle before the drums come back in, followed by the rest of the instruments.

Huddie Ledbetter, "Lead Belly", was a blues singer who was not only a musician, but was also a murderer. He was sent to prison in 1918 for murder, and found guilty, but was pardoned by the governor of Texas after singing a song. He was later arrested for attempted murder in 1930 and it was during this imprisonment that he got the name "Lead Belly", which was a play on his last name, "Ledbetter", and how tough he was. On the subject of music, he was a band kid, who later became a street musician that met and played with Blind Lemon Jefferson. He began to start playing his signature instrument at this time, the 12 string guitar. He later moved from Texas to New York to become a professional musician, but then in 1939, he was arrested yet again for stabbing someone. When he got out, he moved to LA where he signed to the label Capitol Records and began to really get some notoriety. He then got ALS, toured for a little while, then died in 1961.